Learning to Drive

Our Driver’s Ed class was private, the sign under Shear Genius Hair Studio, a shanty behind Taco Bell on Lathrop Avenue where Ryan King caulked a Lite can to my dad’s T-topped Grand Prix bumper and we met twice a week. We were fifteen and a half, heavily eyelinered, one of us still a virgin. Teri’s ex-boyfriend Shane shot himself after our first drive, he was on the phone with B.B. when he did it, I heard from Misti at Pinocchio’s the same night. We thought she was joking, she laughed, said Shane is dead! Shane Peterson killed himself! We cried for her shock, she couldn’t work anymore. Our next class was a quiz, heads on desks, our first funeral just over. There was a line around the block to pay respect, at school confused graffiti on lockers, flowers in bathroom stalls, we learned how to drive that month on boulevards, backing up, grinding gears.